Poe walked down the seemingly endless corridor, the tapping of his boots against the hard wood floor kept the silence away. His legs quit their movement once he reached the oversized door at the very end of the hall. He twisted the knob and gently pushed. It inched open before he was required to push once more, this time with slightly more force. The door slid open the rest of the way allowing Poe to enter.

He cautiously took a few steps in swinging the door closed with his foot. He stepped around to his desk shifting the chair out finally able to rest his feet. He sat examining his surroundings as if there would be something new. It was rather useless considering the room was only lit by the moonlight passing in through the large window behind him. He pulled his hand over towards the small desk lamp.

He trailed his fingers across the thin string, once they hit the small rounded metal piece at the end he tugged down switching it on. The light radiated a warm orange glow across the whole room. The way it hit his surroundings made them look enchanting. It soothed him. While he was taking in his vicinity Karl hopped up on to his dark wooden desk. Poe turned giving his companion a welcoming smile.

Karl walked forward as Poe stretched out his arm. His hand landed softly between his ears. Karl tilted his head leaning into Poe's hand. Poe quietly chuckled to himself ruffling Karl's fury head. He took back his hand receiving a disappointed whine from Karl which made him smile thinking it was funny. He opened the top drawer on the right side if his desk, his smile fadding once his eyes landed on a certain book. He carefully pulled it out gently placing it down making sure not to damage the already visibly torn book.

Karl stepped back to an extent, he shifted his position clearly upset at the sight of the damaged book. Poe stared at its bent and imperfect cover, pages were sticking out in different places, they were torn and just plain out unsalvageable. It look like if it was handled with a little too much force or a little too rough it would fall apart and just crumble into nothing but dust. Poe placed his hand on the cover making sure to not damage it any more.

He softly dragged his fingers down feeling the rough texter that basically crumbled at his touch, he pulled them away after seeing the paper peel from the contact. Only then did he see his hand violently shaking. He slowly pulled them into each other attempting to still them. He glanced back at the book taking a deep breath. He slowly picked up the cover lifting it to view the inside.

A ton of pages were scattered within each other but, towards the end and the middle of the book they were held together by clear tape. Actually about a little more than half the book was taped together the best it could be. He gently flipped the pages till he arrived at the last page he attempted to fix. Poe sighed before grabbing a stray piece of paper from the beginning. He examined it reading the words on both sides. He placed it down before grabbing another. He repeated this. Reading and attempting to figure out which pieces went together.

It was like a puzzle but much more difficult, although it had gotten easier since the beginning. Their were less pieces to choose from which was a big gain for Poe. Karl watched as Poe kept picking odd pieces of paper attempting to match them. Poe brought his hands to his head holding back tears. It had been a little more than over a year since he had started fixing the book, it the beginning he attempted to make the pages seamless. He wanted to get it back to it's original state so he could read it over and over. He eventually turned to just taping them back together the best he could as it would take less time and the pieces seemed to get more and more unsalvageable. He was eager to finish. He wanted to save help. Poe turned his head slightly so he could  look over to Karl.

Karl tilted his head upset at the way Poe let tears slowly slide down his cheek. They slowly made there way down his cheeks and onto the book in front if him. The newly fallen tears splotched together picking up some ink from the printed words on the page. Forming small black splotches on the paper like water colour, they stained the pages permanently. Karl stepped forward, he reached out and grabbed the few stray pieces of paper Poe had put off to the side in there own area in an attempt to sort them. He was clearly getting nowhere. All this was doing was hurting him. Karl gently placed them back into the beginning of the book where they originally laid. He grabbed the cover page with his tiny hands lifting it back to the original form of behind closed. He slid it to the side.

Poe's shoulders shook as he quietly let out soft whimpers making an attempt to hold in his emotions. Karl hopped forward placing his small hand on Poe's arm. This caused Poe to move taking his companion into his arms. He snuggled into Poe's embrace wishing he could hug back.

"I... I miss him Karl"

Poe's voice broke as he spoke. Instead of just his hands shaking his whole body was trembling. Poe let go of Karl and placed his head down on the desk. Karl took this as an opportunity, he jumped off the desk and disappeared from the orange glow. Poe tried to steady his breathing and calm himself. He closed his eyes and attempted to clear his head. In the meantime Karl came back carrying a blanket in his mouth, he jumped back  to the desk.

He crawled on to Poe's shoulder, he pulled the blanket across his shoulders attempting to drape the blanket evenly over him, he was doing the best he could. Karl hopped off and curled up beside Poe. Letting him know he was there if needed. Poe sighed and peered over to the small desk lamp. He thought about turning it off but, decided on leaving it on. That's what Ranpo would have done.

His breath hitched as a few new tears found their way to his eyes. Just the thought of him broke him into a million pieces. Would he even ever see him again? Would he ever be able to hold him, run his fingers through his charcoal coloured hair, or even listen to him complain about something stupid. God how much he would lose just to hear him speak, to hear one word even.

Poe smiled at the thought of seeing Ranpo again but, it left when reality hit. Ranpo was gone. No matter how hard he tried. He would never come back. Not even fixing the book, it was too far gone. He finally let out the emotions he'd been bottles up for so long, he sobbed into his arm as memories of that stupid Detective filled his mind.

After many long hours of crying  Poe had finally slipped to sleep, leaving the room silent. The warm glow the lamp was casting bounced on to Poe's raven hair causing it to look a more muted orange. A soft breeze came in from the cracked open window, it softly blew at his hair causing it to sway a bit. And for the first time in a long time he looked at peace.

Ok why is no one talking about Ranpo in the manga! The fuck happened to the book! If that book gets destroyed Ranpo is dead! They better not kill my baby!
gotta admit this REALLY hurt to write. The idea of Poe fixing the book Ranpo got stuck in popped into my head when I was thinking about Ranpo and the manga at 2am so i desperately wrote this. Anyways hope you enjoyed

Eggrollinabowl♡